As the title suggests, i want to bring up some points on the initial day 1 play with the new heroes that I believe would be beneficial for the devs to look at. I will keep my comments as detached, factual and relevant as possible. I make this post with an open mind knowing that it is the first day release and there is room for improvements in my game play ect. This being said letís get into it:

Shaman: honestly she feels rather balanced on her normal mode play. Her attacks are strong, have a few good mix up options, but nothing too over the top. Her attacks are fair: there is a relatively opportunistic feel to most of her attacks holding true to an assassin mind set of jump in for an attack and retreat. Overall there is a pretty good flow of attacks as far as chains, feints ect. While in blood trance, I would even go as far as to say the heal is relatively fair, again, on normal attacks. This is probably not a popular opinion, however her attacks are not super damaging, and therefore she must still be careful while trying to simultaneously be offensive. For playing against and with her all day long, there are only 2 fixes Iíd make to her to make her more balanced:

Pounce: her pounce has an awfully tight dodge timing. It also ignores HA from what Iíve seen, which Iím sure has the shugoki and HL players in an uproar, and to be honest rightfully so. For such a fast attack, something needs to give I feel. Either slow it down just a tad or relax the dodge window just a tad. Other than that I find it a good tool to use. The problem is in blood trance. Pounce is way too strong offering huge reward for a low cost unlike shugokis demon embrace. She heals from it, and takes way too much health. This attack is way too damaging while being reliable without sever downside like shugoki and his health drain. I feel as though her one melee attack should not heal, but only her attacks. Iím not saying change much, just please reduce the damage. Itís hard to take a move seriously when you have outplayed your opponent to a severe degree and lose 3 bars of health to one very difficult move to dodge. Just my personal thought on that one. Sorry, Iíll try to keep those to a minimum.

Leaping attack: her leap attack is also way too fast with too good a range. If you are not in the same gaurd youíre guaranteed to not block on reaction in time. Iím not saying you shouldnít be keeping the attack in mind while she has a lot of space, but itís like she teleports and in comparison to other characters must be the fastest and least telegraphed leap attack in the game. Not game breaking, but also in comparison not exactly balanced either.

Now on to aramusha:

Aramusha is an interesting character. Admittedly his feint game is hard to make the most out of. Once people start catching on though, I am not so sure it will matter a whole lot as his infinite chain is very weak on comparison to berserker.

Infinite chain: It looks good on paper with the added chain finisher soft feint, and admittedly the soft feint is good, but you will never get in a heavy 80% of the time unless guaranteed, and thatís day 1 with people still trying to figure out how to play against him. His chain also has nothing to boost it for it being so easy to counter. At least berserker has HA. Aramusha canít trade anything, this making any continuation of chain attack a bad idea against any attack, which would TOTALLY be fine except for one thing, which I will get to in a second. My recommendation: slow down his attacks a little (isnít he supposed to be heavy vanguard anyways?), increase damage and give at the very least his heavy finishers HA to compensate.

Gb: I understand there will be future changes, but there is literally no benifit at all to gb an opponent unless by a wall or hazard. Compared to other characters, this is a SEVERE handicap. I think you might get a guaranteed light, I snuck one in each time, but again, in comparison this is unacceptable. At least HL flows into a very strong OS. The most a light does is allows for an infinite chain start up, but like i said earlier, itís not exactly the best infinite chain in the game as you risk a parry punish if you go for a heavy, could possibly keep going if you successfully get off a soft feint, but if canceled into gb offers next to nothing unlike berserker. Itís not even worth parry baiting his attacks either.

Full block stance: this is his main tool of defense, however I found 3 main problems with it so far: there is not really a reward for getting it off other than very small stamina drain and damage, a dodgeable kick that offers slight stamina drain that in all honesty is bigger if you go for the parry, or an UB heavy that is easily parryable though it can cancel, but with not any real follow up if canceled. It is also very slow to activate, sometimes it ďworksĒ in the fact that it blocks from each direction last minute but doesnít offer any of the follow ups, which has left me wiffing and getting punished for doing so on multiple occasions. Lastly he is not an assassin, please allow this defensive posture to be permanent like everyone elseís who has full block stance. What good is it if itís completely unviable against more than one person?

Iím not saying he is horrible by any means, but it feels awfully like they took concepts of multiple heroes kits they thought were good and compacted them into one character without giving him the benefits that made that particular move or chain strong:
Infinite chain: zerker but without HA
Built in soft feints: kensei but without HA
Full block: multiple characters but with assassin stance property
Ring the bell: centurions head smack but less draining
Full block kick: nobushis kick without a guarantee follow up
You all see my point by now Iím sure.

He has some good tools, but heís lacking.

Overall, some solid ideas and awesome character development. I love playing the aramusha especially, both character just need slight adjustments. Overall relatively happy with this season. Good job guys.

mrmistark

11-15-2017, 02:32 PM

Also, forgot, aramushaís zone attack is pretty good and is one of the only really viable tools he has past a 1-2 hit infinite chain. Itíd be nice if both were ub like the raider zone so it gives the character at least some reliability.